Hogan told Munguia rematch will happen

By Chris Williams: Dennis Hogan (28-2-1, 7 KOs) fought well enough to deserve a victory against WBO junior middleweight champion Jaime Munguia (33-0, 26 KOs) last Saturday night on DAZN at the Arena Monterrey, in Monterrey, Mexico. Instead of getting the win, the 34-year-old Australian based Hogan wound up losing a 12 round majority decision to the home fighter Munguia by the scores 115-113, 116-112, and 114-114.

It’s easy to understand what the judges saw that made them score the fight for Munguia. He fought harder, especially down the home stretch, and he was the more aggressive in pushing the fight. Hogan was doing a lot of spoiling with his holding and moving.

There wasn’t much celebration after the scores were announced. Although Munguia seemed happy, the crowd was quiet, and Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya didn’t look as happy as he normally is when one of his fighters win. De La Hoya had a smile on his face, but he didn’t look estatic. Munguia hadn’t shined in the fight. He had struggled worse than he did in his previous fight against Takeshi Inoue last January in Houston, Texas.

The commentators for DAZN had Hogan winning by 7 rounds to 5, which is how Boxing News 24 had it. Hogan says he’s been told already by Munguia’s co-promoters at Zanker promotions that he will be getting a rematch against the 22-year-old Munguia. He didn’t say when the rematch will happen, but one would believe it would need to happen soon before Munguia leaves the 154 lb weight class to begin campaigning at 160.

“I’m very disappointed. I’m not one to cry,” Hogan said to Fighthype about his controversial 12 round decision loss to Jaime Munguia last Saturday night. “I know I won the fight. Jaime Munguia knows I won the fight. DAZN had me winning. All the Mexican fans in the stadium were absolutely dead quiet after the decision [was announced], and I couldn’t believe my ears. I looked down and [Julio Cesar] Chavez and all the commentators, it was all quiet, and I just knew I was robbed,” Hogan said.

It’s going to be interesting to see if Hogan gets the rematch he supposedly was told that he’ll be getting with Munguia. If not, then Hogan will need to busy fighting to work his way back to another mandatory position, unless the World Boxing Organization steps in and orders the rematch. That doesn’t mean Munguia will give it to Hogan. Munguia chooses to move up in weight to middleweight, then the WBO 154 lb title will fall vacant, leaving Hogan to scrap it out with the next highest available contender in the sanctioning bodies’ top 10 rankings. That would be most likely one of these fighters: 2. Julian Williams, 3. Kell Brook, 4. Patrick Teixeira or 5. Bakhram Murtazaliev.

“I do take solace in Zanker [Promotions] saying they’ll give a rematch. We want a rematch, and if they’re fair, we’ll get it in Australia,” Hogan said. “What more I could say? I’m obviously fighting for my family. The judges just robbed the future for my family in my next fight as a world champion. But all I can do is out of my control now. Will be in for a rematch,” Hogan said.

You can argue that the judges didn’t feel that Hogan had done enough as the challenger to take the title from the champion. It wasn’t a robbery. It was more of a case of Hogan using too much movement, holding too frequently, coming in with his head first when attacking, and not fighting hard in the 12th round. Munguia was fighting like the challenger. He was missing a lot with his punches, but he was still showing that he wanted it more by fighting consistently. Hogan kept tying Munguia up, and not letting him throw punches. The judges saw that, and it obviously factored into their scoring of the fight.

“I was a robbery. I said to Dennis after the fight, ‘You’ve won the fight,'” Hogan’s trainer Glenn Rushton said to Fighthype. “There was no doubt whatsoever in my mind. Some commentator had it eight rounds to four for Dennis; others had it seven to five for Dennis, but everyone had the fight going to Dennis, everyone! He won the fight, simple. I know it. Munguia knew it. I looked in the eyes, and I could see that defeated look on his face. He knew it. It’s heart breaking. We put the work in. We did the impossible. No one said we could do it. The bookies didn’t give us a chance. No one gave us a chance, but we did it, we won the fight,” Rushton said. At this point, an emotional Rushton stopped the interview and walked away.

If Hogan does get a rematch, he’s going to have to fight differently if he wants to beat Munguia. Just moving around, tying up, and throwing pot shots it’s enough to take the title from the champion. Hogan needs to put in a more consistent effort to get the ‘W’ against the world champion Munguia. Hogan wants the rematch to take place in Australia, but that’s not likely to happen. If it does, you can believe that Munguia will be looking to take the judges out of play. He’s not going to want to risk winding up like Manny Pacquiao when he lost a controversial 12 round decision to Australian fighter Jeff Horn in 2017 in Brisbane, Australia. A lot of boxing fans saw that fight as a robbery. Munguia needs to think about taking the judges out of the equation f he’s worried abut winning the rematch.

Whether he gives Hogan the rematch or not, Munguia needs to make improvement in his game. This is the second fight in a row that he was unable to score a knockout. Munguia was getting hit too often by Hogan, and he looked exhausted in the second part of the contest. Munguia might want to get a new trainer to help him improve. If not a new trainer, then Munguia should add strength coach Alex Ariza to his team to help him prove on his conditioning. Munguia looked like he didn’t have the energy to fight as hard as he needed to in order to finish off Hogan in the later rounds.